`Music Scene' Video Takes A Time-capsule Trip To 1969

July 26, 1996|By Donald Liebenson. Special to the Tribune.

Dennis Hopper is quoted as saying that if you can remember the 1960s, you weren't there. But even if you were, you could be forgiven for not remembering "Music Scene," a weekly TV series billed as a "super concert of the world's best music."

It was on the air for less than five months.

But now, you can make the "Scene" with the Archies and Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bobby Sherman, Sly and the Family Stone, Eydie Gorme, and Janis Joplin in four volumes of episodes and "bonus songs" available on the Oak Park-based MPI Home Video label ($19.95 each; also available as a box set for $79.95).

"Music Scene" is a time-capsule trip for the music, but the series also deserves a footnote in television history for its impact on the comedy scene. Its fleeting existence incited the breakup of a legendary troupe, provided a springboard for two breakout comedians, and paved the way for a show that five years later would, finally, successfully combine rock music with cutting-edge satire.

"Music Scene" made its debut on ABC on Sept. 22, 1969. It was a conceptually bold but, according Tony Hendra, a writer for the show, was an increasingly compromised experiment in counterprogramming against the venerable "Gunsmoke," entering its 15th season on CBS, and the considerably hipper, more youth-oriented "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" on NBC.

Based on "Top of the Pops," a British TV series that featured hit songs of the week, "Music Scene," as conceived, was to be a showcase for supergroups, with comedy sketches by the Committee, San Francisco's answer to Second City. To co-opt "Laugh-In's" audience, ABC scheduled "Music Scene" to begin a half-hour earlier. The show ran an unprecedented 45-minutes, piggybacked to another ill-fated quarter-hour series, "The New People," which was created by "The Twilight Zone's" Rod Serling, and was set on a remote island where 40 stranded college students endeavored to build their own society.

The Committee's hipster credentials attracted a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame lineup, including the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones, whose promos for the show are featured on each "Music Scene" video. "It was a very polarized time," said Hendra. "Rock groups only appeared on TV sporadically, and generally speaking, television was considered (by musicians) to be plastic. It was the enemy. But they were more interested if the Committee was involved."

They were not involved for long. "The Committee was very subversive and underground," Hendra said. "(Casting them) was a bold move for ABC. But the network got cold feet."

A different cast was assembled. Though the Committee as an ensemble was out, its members Larry Hankin, Carl Gottlieb and Christopher Ross opted to do the show. This led to the group's bitter end. Recruited to join the new company were Second City alumnus David Steinberg, who served as host, and a young comedian named Lily Tomlin. By the time the show was canceled, they were the only ones left standing.

Without the Committee, many of the music groups reportedly dropped out, but "Music Scene" still attracted an enviable, and eclectic, lineup of legends, hitmakers and one-hit wonders, from Jerry Lee Lewis and the Rascals to R.B. Greaves of "Take a Letter, Maria" fame.

The songs were culled from the charts of Billboard magazine, which, according to Steinberg, led to such artistic dilemmas as maintaining viewer interest in the Archies' "Sugar Sugar," which was No. 1 for several weeks (it is performed on "Vol. 3" by the Archies, and on "Vol. 4" by the Music Scene Singers). "We hated that song," Steinberg said, laughing, while speaking by phone from Toronto, where he is directing the film "The Wrong Guy," starring Dave Foley.

However, after fast-forwarding through "The Mod Squad's" Michael Cole performing "Rod McKuen Railroad Poetry" (on "Vol. 3") or Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 derailing "Wichita Lineman" (on "Vol. 1"), one catches in video glimpses what the show struggled, against network interference, to achieve.

"Vol. 1" includes Pete Seeger singing the anti-Vietnam War song "Bring Them Home." Tom Smothers, a co-host on the show featured on "Vol. 2," makes several drug references, and musical guest Sly and the Family Stone sing "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey." A blackout skit contained on "Vol. 4" has for its punchline two male truck drivers holding hands.

"It was the start of the counterculture on television" that anticipated "Saturday Night Live," he said. "It may not be reflected on the videos, but the show was very potent for its time. It had a tremendous comic irreverence. It was always a battle in those days (to perform satirical material). Up until Watergate, you were a Communist if you made fun of the president of the United States."